Whatever art is expressed through your live performance, you must prepare it with the greatest care and the best tools. Drama, dance, or circus performances are not planned in a day. By following the key steps to organising a show described below, you’re increasing your odds of success. Basic rules, paperwork and communication won’t have any secrets for you!
Contents
- Mastering the basics
- Complying with administrative requirements
- Using a spectacular ticketing solution
- Ensuring flawless security
- Communicating to fill your show
1. Mastering the basics
The target audience
Before organising a live performance, it is essential to think about the target audience. The actual attendees may be different from what you had imagined, but you have to start with a general idea in mind. A caricatural but legitimate example would be to recommend you not to organise a children’s show in a city that has a high average age. It is a matter of using common sense, but leaving the door open to surprises.
The venue
The location of the show is as important as the quality of the venue receiving the attendees. The good news is that we have published articles on the accessibility of events and the search for the ideal venue.
The artists
Who will be performing at your show? Dancers, actors, comedians… the choice is so vast! Professionals or amateurs – it’s up to you! The key here is to find a balance between artists – and an artistic offering – who attract a sufficient number of attendees while preserving your finances. The following paragraph will therefore be used to choose the most suitable performers for your show.
The budget
Whether your show is free or not, whether it is for profit or not, you will have to think about a budget. Take a look at our article entitled Basic rules to create your event’s budget. You will see that it is better to think about your budget before you start organising your show.
2. Complying with administrative requirements
Organising a live performance requires a lot of paperwork. The first thing you should do is notify your local council or town hall about the show. The local authorities’ decision to allow it will depend in part on the venue where your show is held and its compliance with current standards. If you organise more than six performances per year, you will have to apply for a licence too.
Organising performances is a very specific business for which the authorities do not want to leave anything to chance. This is why we strongly recommend that you read all the requirements described in this information — section 2.2 — and in this other one on Entertainment Licensing, both published by the government.
3. Using a spectacular ticketing solution
An all-in-one ticketing platform
Your Weezevent ticketing module can be added to your website in a matter of seconds. If you don’t have a website, you can create a free Weezevent mini-site dedicated to your show. In both cases, you can link it to your Facebook event and page to sell more tickets. If you wish, you can sell tickets on location the day of your show using Weezevent’s box-offices and thermal printers. Increase your odds of selling-out your show!
Tickets adapted to the venues
Regardless of the venue or location where your live performance takes place, some audience members will necessarily have a better seat than others. It is therefore appropriate to offer different rates based on the quality of the seat. However, be careful not to ask for an outrageous price for the best seats, nor to offer seats of very poor quality on the pretence that their price is low. This will probably backfire on you later.
With Weezevent, you can easily set-up rates according to the location: pit, stands, balconies, first row, etc. Combined with Weezevent’s numbered seating option, this considerably increases the quality of the service offered to the audience. You can also offer different rates: standard/discounted or fixed/free.
Sessions for each performance
Weezevent’s ticketing solution is so user-friendly that you can effortlessly create multiple sessions! Schedule as many dates and times as you want in Session Mode. This will save you precious hours when preparing your show!
4. Ensuring flawless security
Hiring a security service will depend heavily on the context in which you organise your show. However, you will have to set up a flawless system to check tickets. This will drastically reduce the risk of incidents. You can prevent fraud by using Weezevent’s access control equipment. Any invalid ticket is detected the second it is scanned. Our solution also gives you the means to control “special” tickets and limit access to areas such as artists’ or volunteers’ areas.
To benefit from this, you can either use WeezAccess – our free mobile app – or our WeezAccess Pro professional terminals. The latter are recommended for high attendance shows.
5. Communicating to fill your show
Stand out from the crowd and attract as many people as possible by creating visuals that match your show’s artistic offering. Not sure which communication channels to use to fill your show? Compare what similar events around you – or events that are different from yours – are using. Don’t try to do everything but rather choose the 3-4 most relevant channels.
On all web channels – website, Facebook, Instagram, etc. – share a link to your online ticketing so that your potential audience members can book tickets in a few clicks.
And it doesn’t stop once your performance is over. Thanks to all the email addresses collected when attendees bought their tickets, you can let them know when you organise new performances.
Now you know how to prepare a memorable show. With Weezevent, you can do more than just sell tickets online. Discover all our other services by clicking on the button below:
